Between 2017-07-04 and 2018-01-04 there were 671 reports made about insufficient/exessive heat in residential units. A few neighborhoods were affected disproportionately, as is the unfortunate truth of many disadvantages. Approximately 42% of the reports were made from the Dorchester and Roxbury neighborhoods.
Heat reports follow a seasonal trend, peaking in the summer and winter. However, there are many more calls made in the winter. My hypothesis for this is that someone with limited mobility would have a more difficult time going somewhere else, like a community center or other public space, when there are slick sidewalk conditions and frigid temperatures. Additionally, Boston’s winter is more extreme than its summer, relatively speaking.
Reports spiked in late December/early January as a result of the far-below freezing temperatures that hit much of the United States, paricularly the east coast states.
However, those spikes varied spatially across the city. Taking only the total values gives a skewed idea of how cold affects Boston’s residents. To build off of the seasonal patterns, we can look at a heatmap of seasonal patterns by neighborhood.
Allston/Brighton, Dorchester, Greater Mattapan, Jamaica Plain, and Roxbury bear the vast majority of the burden for the heat-related requests. One intervention to take would be to advertise places where people can seek shelter during extreme weather in community meeting spaces, such as grocery stores or community center, that are specific to those areas.
People with lower incomes are more likely to be renters, living in older buildings, or have less flexibility in their schedule, among other things. These factors all compound to make them more likely to be affected by cold winters. That is part of the reason why neighborhoods like Roxbury and Dorchester see disparate impacts during the winter. For simplicity (and time), I assumed a linear relationship between the median income in a census tract and the total number of heat-related reports in that tract. There was a statistically signficant, and I would argue practically significant as well, linear relationship between the two. In reality, I do not think a linear model would provide the best fit. Given more time, I would analyze different models to find the best one. I plotted the relationship below for visual reference. The model output is also printed below.
## term estimate std.error statistic p.value
## 1 (Intercept) 7.693054e+00 7.841309e-01 9.810932 1.456167e-17
## 2 estimate -4.973118e-05 1.209271e-05 -4.112494 6.689578e-05Knowing that relationship, I’ve plotted the median values of the census tracts as a choropleth map. The red circles are locations that have reported insufficient/excessive heat. The BCYF icons are the geocoded locations of BCYF locations in Boston. This map starts to give an idea of how the spatial patterns play out on the ground. We can see that in general there are larger clusters of dots in lower income areas, which supports the original idea given by the model above.
But, there is one federal program in particular that can help. It is the Weatherization Assistance Program. This program gives grants to the states to help “weatherize” homes for low-income families that are overly-burdened by heating costs. In Boston the program is administered through Action for Boston Community Development. Unfortunately, President Trump has identified this program as one of the many assistance programs he wants to cut in order to save money1. Putting that aside, in order to qualify, a family must earn less than 60% of the state-wide median income.
According to the 2016 5 year American Community Survey, Massachusetts had a state-wide median income of $70,954 (+/- 343). Sixty percent of the state-wide median income is $42572. As a first-pass measure, I calculated which tracts have a median income equal to or less than $42572. In those tracts, at least 50% of the households would qualify for weatherization funds from Action for Boston Community Development. In program year 2017, ABCD planned to spend $538,150.00 weatherizing 90 units in Boston2. Many home-improvement programs in the US target homeowners, but this federal program allows renters to apply with the permission of their landlord. I argue that we should work with local community centers (BCYF) and ABCD, the provider, to advertise the weatherization programs. It would help target vulnerable families with young children as well as elderly people. Ideally, we could also work with places like libraries. I would include those if given more time. Since advertising campaigns can be resource-intensive, we should start with centers in tracts with a lower median income and at least one heat-related report. I’ve highlighted those centers below.
According to this analysis, coordinated communication efforts should start in these 12 centers: Condon, Gallivan, Grove Hall Senior Center, Holland, Jackson/Mann, Madison Park, Mason Pool, Mattahunt, Perkins, Quincy, Shelburne, and Vine Street. In the next round of analysis, I would perform a more sophisticated search using distance-based neighbors to identify patterns in surrounding tracts as well as look at centers near homes with prior reports.
While WAP is certainly not the only heating assistance program or possible intervention, it is a good start and has similar criterion as the other programs. It’s significant advantage is that it is a longer-term solution than some other programs. With further research I would identify alternatives and fine-tune the selection process for the best locations in which to advertise, as well as the best way to address the problem.
The Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program is another important program to advertise. It provides funds for heating costs, but is a more short-term solution. But in the winter, short-term is much preferable to the alternative: an unlivable home.